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My answers will be more from a player's perspective rather than as a creator, though I might try to create some puzzles or a taskforce.

Capabilities:
All of your ideas from the capabilities section sound excellent to me.
I see value in the listed options to gate access to a given MA mission based on the attributes of a character, as well as to set a min and max team size for challenges and puzzles.
Decent search capabilities are important for the health of the system. To support it, I'd like a 5-star rating system, and a loss of privileges (to create or to rate) for those who repeatedly abuse either function.
Offer a path to get content added to the official game if rated highly, and reward content creators who contribute to the game in this way.

Experiences:
Allow the creation of a wide range of open world and instanced missions, mission arcs including taskforce-type content, plus puzzle/stealth challenges and combat challenges.
Specifically, I'd try to create types of missions that are rare in the official game. In CoH I would have tried to make mysteries, puzzles, and "Defend the [object]" / "Hold out against the horde" missions, for example, as these were rare.

Rewards/Motivation to play:
Primary - Experience new stories and challenges.
Secondary - "Ticket" rewards that can be traded in (as in CoH's AE) for specific crafting resources, enhancements, temp powers, pets, and similar items. These items can be sold in the auction house to obtain a "gold" reward instead; players can use tickets to help keep all crafting resources in stock (a self-balancing economic system), and it acts as a gold sink if there are fees to trade.
Low or zero powerleveling motivation - significantly reduced or no xp, unless bulletproofed against what we've seen before.
Zero inflation - no gold, but see secondary motivation.

An idea I had for the original MA was an open world tutorial on CoV's hidden contacts. Being able to go out into the world and script interactions for contacts could be cool.

Cinematics are right out. Unskipable movies put together by random folks? Sorry but no part of that sounds good.

I've no issue with folks getting xp in the MA, but there WERE some horrible stories about "MA babies" that had no idea about how the rest of the game worked. Forcing folks out of their chosen playstyle generally isn't good, but maybe this is a case where some kind of exception could be made? Possibly just forcing them to a door mission in another zone every 40 missions or so? Would love to hear other ideas and opinions on this to be honest.

I liked how the MA handled badges. For those who may not know or remember, you could only get MA related badges from running MA missions. It wasn't a cheap way to get kill X of Y badges.

Maybe learn from CoH's mistakes.
Reward? The reward is in running another player's story. No XP. No tickets to turn in for something. Instead, you get 1 notch on the way to the "Ran 1000 Different Player Made Missions" Badge!
This will keep it from being turned into a power leveling tool and keep it what it's supposed to be, a way for other players to tell and run their own mission stories.

I'm not so fully behind the 'only-for-a-badge' idea, but I do appreciate the concept and the motivation behind it.

Some players want to power-level. Who are we as other players to deny it of them? Who are we to say that our votes weigh more than theirs? If they want to rush to max level by repeating content until it gets so stale they can do it in their sleep, they are really only cheating themselves.

But besides that, along the lines you were going, I think there could be other incentives besides XP for running architect missions. Perhaps if we run enough missions we get costume items and titles as well as a badge. Maybe the architect author gets stuff, too. And maybe the architect author gets so many unlock keys they can share with the people who gave the best or most constructive feedback on the mission. The number of unlock keys they get is a function of the number of people who have played the mission. And the keys can be used for special items that can only be gained with one.

So, along those lines, I think it would make sense to have a reputation system in the Mission architect. It couldn't be a reputation with an in-game faction, so let's say it is with the Mission Architects Guild (MAG). The more reputation you get by running missions, writing reviews, getting 'helpful' votes on your reviews, actually creating missions, winning mission contests, getting positive reviews and getting numbers of participants all go towards MAG reputation. And the MAG reputation store can include things for your characters such as pets and costumes and titles as well as for your mission designs, such as sets, Paragons as NPCs, factions as enemies, costumes, & etc.

—

I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.

To my opinion, the CoT.M.A needs to have a really well think system to search and find a mission or an ark of mission or missions from the same autor...
I think it also need to have :
- a voting system or at lease a feedback system to warn other players.
- A information panel of the mission (During, difficulty, reward, summary of the mission, which mission it is inside the arch story (e.g : 1/4)
- a standalone character creator with the possibility to import some design already made in the character creator ^^
- A hhuuuuuugggeee panel of environnement such as space, jungle, ruins, other planet (mars ?)
- The possibility of changing the light intensity so as to create as particular atmosphere
- A really well build tutorial to know what we can do with the M.A ^^
- Some ads in game for some missions (top 10 ?)
- A badge for creating a story ? or which has been run more than 200+ ? or something like that :)

About the PL in missions, it could be easily maintained to a certain level in making the gain of XP regarding the length of the mission or the difficulty ? But inside the mission, no XP is gained. But gaining XP is, to my opinion, important to attract people to use the M.A and make it popular.

XP rewards in UGC doesn't have to be a binary option, as in "all" (compared to normal content) or nothing. MWM could most likely easily set it at a lowered rate so to make chaining normal missions be slightly better XP over time. When removing the PLing potential of UGC (or any other content) you don't have to remove all of its normal leveling potential, since I fully expect that UGC will be a viable way to level a character all the way from start to finish.

As for the capabilities of the MA I think MWM has hinted that we will essentially have the same capabilities as they do in creating content, with the big exceptions being no pre-made cut-scenes (I can see in-game scripted ones being possible) and not being able to add ones own assets.

Some players want to power-level. Who are we as other players to deny it of them? Who are we to say that our votes weigh more than theirs?

Unfortunately, power levelers tend to speed through content for the myopic objective of getting to maximum level, yet cannot be bothered to actually take the time to learn their role on a team, as well as team dynamics.

Door-sitting and expecting others to do *your* work (while you still get to roll for much sought-after items) is insulting to the teammates who are actually working for those drops and must now fill the vacuum caused by one or more "MA Babies"!

An idea we had early on, don't know if we'll follow through with it or not yet, was that MA type missions would grant XP, but no in-game currency or drops. So, certainly you could power to 50, but you'd be a 50 without any currency, augments, badges, unlocks, etc.

—

Technical Director

Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider

In COH there was mission complete xp and baddie xp. What UGC didn't award the mission complete xp/IGC. And baddie xp was reduced to 85%. This wouldn't make UGC completely useless but encourage people to get out and play dev content. Then there could be curated UGC content. Particularly good stories would get selected by the devs for full rewards. That would encourage people to put their best foot forward and get their content selected for that "honor."

There also needs to be a better system for rating content. Come up with a list of flags/tags for players to apply to content. Then allow players to sort for the best ranking content with a given set of tags. some tags/flags could be "WIP," "Author," "PL," "Mystery," "enemy group X," "Crossover," "Hero," "Villain," "stealth" etc. COH really lacked in ranking content and the ability to sort content.

An idea we had early on, don't know if we'll follow through with it or not yet, was that MA type missions would grant XP, but no in-game currency or drops. So, certainly you could power to 50, but you'd be a 50 without any currency, augments, badges, unlocks, etc.

And then, if its a reroll, we could give it lots of money from our main... ^^ Not a really good idea to my opinion

An idea we had early on, don't know if we'll follow through with it or not yet, was that MA type missions would grant XP, but no in-game currency or drops. So, certainly you could power to 50, but you'd be a 50 without any currency, augments, badges, unlocks, etc.

And then, if its a reroll, we could give it lots of money from our main... ^^ Not a really good idea to my opinion

As I said, it was an idea. Nothing in stone at the moment.

—

Technical Director

Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider

Unfortunately, power levelers tend to speed through content for the myopic objective of getting to maximum level, yet cannot be bothered to actually take the time to learn their role on a team, as well as team dynamics.

Right, or 'any' role in a team. That would require understanding others. That might even take a certain amount of Empathy. That would take effort!

That and diminishing returns everytime a user-generated-content mission is activated.

I forgot this idea. A interesting one indeed. So, no need to be afraid of the PL in a mission. (what about on several easy missions ?)

With those ideas, i'm afraid people do not want to redo those missions because "there is no rewards"... Of course, we don't need a reward each time. But how can we make people come back on the MA regulary ?
What could you put at end of a mission (or a story arc) ? A title ? a new contact ? A piece of a costume ?
And moreover, how can you advertise the MA ? ^^ (to remind people they can do a mission via this system)

What if you couldn't earn real XP in these? Make it a fantastic way to build up rested XP or whatever equivalent we might get for this game, but not move the real XP bar at all. You can train all you want in the danger room, but it doesn't stick until you've applied it in the real world. It does let you know what to look out for, though, so you learn from experience faster.

In CoH it would also make it the fastest way to burn XP debt, but I don't know if that's relevant for this discussion here.

What if you couldn't earn real XP in these? Make it a fantastic way to build up rested XP or whatever equivalent we might get for this game, but not move the real XP bar at all. You can train all you want in the danger room, but it doesn't stick until you've applied it in the real world. It does let you know what to look out for, though, so you learn from experience faster.
In CoH it would also make it the fastest way to burn XP debt, but I don't know if that's relevant for this discussion here.

What if you couldn't earn real XP in these? Make it a fantastic way to build up rested XP or whatever equivalent we might get for this game, but not move the real XP bar at all. You can train all you want in the danger room, but it doesn't stick until you've applied it in the real world. It does let you know what to look out for, though, so you learn from experience faster.
In CoH it would also make it the fastest way to burn XP debt, but I don't know if that's relevant for this discussion here.

Humm, like the xp debt but inversed ? You mean, like a bonus of XP to apply only in the real game life ?

What if you couldn't earn real XP in these? Make it a fantastic way to build up rested XP or whatever equivalent we might get for this game, but not move the real XP bar at all. You can train all you want in the danger room, but it doesn't stick until you've applied it in the real world. It does let you know what to look out for, though, so you learn from experience faster.
In CoH it would also make it the fastest way to burn XP debt, but I don't know if that's relevant for this discussion here.

Humm, like the xp debt but inversed ? You mean, like a bonus of XP to apply only in the real game life ?

This.... is a clever idea!

—

Technical Director

Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider

Yes to the rested XP idea... and as long as there's either no currency reward, or plenty of "AE Tickets"/drops to balance out any currency reward, the auction economy won't suffer inflation no matter how much AE'ing we do.

McNum wrote:
What if you couldn't earn real XP in these? Make it a fantastic way to build up rested XP or whatever equivalent we might get for this game, but not move the real XP bar at all. You can train all you want in the danger room, but it doesn't stick until you've applied it in the real world. It does let you know what to look out for, though, so you learn from experience faster.
In CoH it would also make it the fastest way to burn XP debt, but I don't know if that's relevant for this discussion here.
Humm, like the xp debt but inversed ? You mean, like a bonus of XP to apply only in the real game life ?

Like playing in TOR, where you log out in a cantina you get like 50% more XP for however long your bonus XP lasted.

TitansCity wrote:
McNum wrote:
What if you couldn't earn real XP in these? Make it a fantastic way to build up rested XP or whatever equivalent we might get for this game, but not move the real XP bar at all. You can train all you want in the danger room, but it doesn't stick until you've applied it in the real world. It does let you know what to look out for, though, so you learn from experience faster.
In CoH it would also make it the fastest way to burn XP debt, but I don't know if that's relevant for this discussion here.
Humm, like the xp debt but inversed ? You mean, like a bonus of XP to apply only in the real game life ?
This.... is a clever idea!

Certainly worth consideration.

—

I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic - Tech Team.

What if you couldn't earn real XP in these? Make it a fantastic way to build up rested XP or whatever equivalent we might get for this game, but not move the real XP bar at all. You can train all you want in the danger room, but it doesn't stick until you've applied it in the real world. It does let you know what to look out for, though, so you learn from experience faster.
In CoH it would also make it the fastest way to burn XP debt, but I don't know if that's relevant for this discussion here.

Humm, like the xp debt but inversed ? You mean, like a bonus of XP to apply only in the real game life ?

So running an architect mission gives you an XP bonus for the next X amount of in-game XP earned. Then when the bonus is used up, there would be an incentive to go run another architect mission.

As with all systems with humans in them, the performance of the system will depend upon the motivations of the humans in the system. In this case, the motivation is to maximize the bonus XP earned in the shortest amount of time so the players can get back out into the game world and apply the bonus.

If this is the case, the density of the architect mission would be the most attractive feature. By density I mean the XP bonus earned per time spent in the mission. And this will be the biggest driver in how architect missions would be designed.

The extreme case would be a robotron scenario where you jump in just to kill as many mobs in as little time as possible. And the unintended consequences of such a decision would result in exactly this.

So to avoid such an unintended consequence, what should we do? We can't link the XP bonus to anything to do with the ratings system, because that would beget the same results, with the highest rated missions being the shortest. Ending up with mutant missions designed to be as short as possible. No matter how you slice it, giving the player base the license to design their own architect missions will result in architect missions designed to optimize the return on bonus XP. While this is not necessarily inherently bad, it will unintentionally drive the playerbase from making the thoughtful and engaging stories we know we really want.

So, sticking to my own philosophy of never shooting down an idea without at least some proposal to make it better, here is my solution:

every time you go to run User Generated Content (UGC) the game randomly selects one architect mission that can be used for the bonus XP. In other words, not every mission will give you the bonus, but there will always be one that does and you can always select the one that does if you choose to. Every time you do, it will be a different one. Furthermore, if you provide feedback on a mission you've run, you get an additional reward. Whether that reward should be additional bonus XP (for any mission you run, regardless of whether it was the one the game selected for being the bonus XP mission) or some in-architect award will be up to MWM.

Thoughts?

—

I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.

Can you provide an overview of a mission that you would like to create?

The first and most important quality is a simple user interface. It took six years to convince CoH to create the Mission Architect. Six years of very active, very civil, very enthusiastic forum discussion over what it should be, how it should work, and what kind of rewards it should offer. The basic idea of a Question and Answer style interface with requirements and text boxes was one that I championed right from my earliest posting days. I was not alone, of course, but I was one of the first to lay out the idea of a simple list of mission requirements with simple text boxes for NPC names, dialogue, story text, and so on. Simple, straight-forward, as close to idiot-proof as it was possible to design. If a ten year-old can use the interface to create completed missions with a beginning, a middle, and an end, then the interface is a success.

The second quality is diversity of maps and enemies. Ideally, a way for the user to create maps from modules that the scripting language can then glue together. In the early days of gaming there were dozens of "dungeon builder" programs that allowed users to choose a series of modules that the game engine would glue together into a single coherent map. Almost no one does this anymore, but almost all of the libraries for achieving it are floating around in GitHub and similar freeware libraries. Some of those libraries are the original libraries used to design player-made versions of Diablo and other dungeon-runner type games. The hard part is creating an interface that an ordinary ten year-old with good reading comprehension and no programming experience can use to create maps and then populate those maps with interactive objects, interactive obstacles, friendly NPCs, and enemy NPCs. Such an interface is extremely difficult to create and the CoH Mission Architect was a stunning achievement in the way it handled interactive objects, even though it never allowed the creation of user-designed maps.

The third quality, and this is the one that is both easiest to conceive and most difficult to achieve, is fully customizable enemy groups with ranks, unique powers, and unique response behaviors. The danger here is twofold: too little customization and too much customization. CoT, like CoH, has one clear advantage over all the competition: their modular costume creator. I'm assuming it works exactly as they've described. Therefore, using it to design both friendly and enemy NPCs for user-generated content should be a simple matter of plugging it into the Mission Architect interface. (I know! I know! Nothing is simple!) CoH did this beautifully. A user could design as many enemy groups as the data limit would allow (in my experience, this meant 5 limited groups or 1 fully fleshed out group). Those groups could be created at the beginning of the mission design process, at anytime during the mission design process, or even at the very end of the mission design process after all the dialogues had been worked out in the storyboard interface. The enemy group, mission creation, and story creation aspects of the CoH Mission Architect were a beautiful, nearly flawless design. I tested it thoroughly on the public test server (and provided a ton of feedback, most of which eventually found its way into the design), pre-ordered it the day it was announced, and used it almost every single day after it went live. It became my very favorite part of playing CoH. In fact, my Beast Mastery/Natural Affinity Mastermind was created in Mission Architect and given a three-mission story arc long before I ever created and played her in the main game world. She began life as a Mission Architect Archvillain on the PTS!

An overview mission arc:

When Beast Mastery was added to the public test server I went and created a character named Persephone Reborn. After she finished Breakout (the tutorial), I went to the PTS Mission Architect and designed an origin story using the Cimerora cave maps. These maps had the perfect ancient Greek/Rome ambiance I wanted to create. In the first mission the player's character (PC) joins an archaeology dig in Iraq. The Iraqi Army has just invaded Kuwait (seemed like a good idea to reference the real world at least obliquely) and the Americans are preparing to push through Kuwait into the Euphrates River Valley. The PC has to gather as many artifacts as they can so the artifacts can be preserved from the ravages of war. Unfortunately, there is another group trying to collect those same artifacts, an enemy group composed entirely of Ninja Masterminds, three ranks: Minion, Lieutenant, and Boss. At the beginning of the first mission there is a friendly NPC named FujiwaraSakura, an archaeologist from Japan (Brute, Dual Swords/Willpower) who will help the PC locate the artifacts and fight off the evil Ninja Masterminds. All of the enemy NPC dialogues reference an unamed "Her" or "She" or "the Mistress" who has commanded them into the tunnels to retrieve "Her Treasures".

In the Second Mission FujiwaraSakura has been captured by an unnamed enemy group that has arrived in response to the failure of the Ninja Masterminds to protect the artifacts. This enemy group has three ranks: Minion, Lieutenant, Archvillain. The Minions are all Katana/Ninjitsu Scrappers with cat ears, cat tails, and Japanese-style school girl uniforms. Their dialogues are wild, wacky, barely intelligible back and forths about, "our Mistress". The Lieutenants are Dual Blades/Ninjitsu Stalkers. Fortunately, the way the Mission Architect worked, as soon as the PC arrived a Lieutenant would Hide, making them vanish momentarily until their first attack (which usually came almost immediately, so they were only invisible for a couple seconds). Unfortunately, they would never Assassin Strike, they just vanished and attacked. In the deepest part of the map was Persephone Reborn, a Beast Mastery/Natural Affinity Mastermind Archvillain who fought with greater intensity at 3/4 health and 1/2 health, but who fled at 1/4 health.

The third mission used the largest, most elaborate Cimerora cave map. FujiwaraSakura begins as a friendly NPC, but as soon as the fighting starts she switches to the enemy side. I don't remember how the Mission Architect handled that, I just remember it was possible and this was not the first time I'd used it. This map is populated with both enemy groups (and I could not place them, so placement was pretty random) but with all new dialogues. The Ninja Masterminds do nothing but complain about the Cat Girls and the Cat Girls do nothing but complain about the Ninja Masterminds. I'm not sure if anyone ever ran these missions, so I don't know how others responded to this back and forth, but I found it hilarious! No matter how hard I tried, I could not control the placement of Persephone Reborn. I wanted her in the End of the Mission, but the Mission Architect dumped her into the map randomly so sometimes she was in the very first room and sometimes she was in the farthest room. I guess this was a bug in the Mission Architect script programming. Either way, in this mission she must be defeated.

Storywise, in the first mission Persephone Reborn is a complete mystery. Someone is behind the enemy group, someone female, but her identity is never revealed. In the Second Mission introduction her name is mentioned as being the mysterious woman (she sent the PC a note about the kidnapping) warning the PC to stop while they can, leave Iraq and never return. Bits and pieces of her story are revealed as the mission progresses through tips, hints, clues, and the Cat Girl's dialogues. Also, she uses every last possible line of dialogue in the final encounter to brag about the role she has played in human history. The third mission tells more about her in the introduction, the hints and clues, and the final souvenir. If a PC puts all the pieces together, Persephone Reborn is a demi-goddess of Celtic origin who moved into the Mediterranean in about 300 BC so she could enjoy the warmer weather. In her story she is the "reality" behind any number of goddesses including Ishtar, Artemis, Venus, and Brigid (four different goddesses from four different pantheons).

The Mission Architect is live in Paragon Chat. A person can create missions to their heart's content. Unfortunately, those missions cannot be run or tested, but going to Paragon Chat and experimenting with the interface will provide a very good example of the right way to design a tool for player-created missions and stories. At least, in my opinion. It fulfilled almost every requirement I laid out in six years of forum discussions and then went on to add features that dozens of other players had requested.

Groupthink does not usually create good design, but in this case, it did.

Had a random thought today. What if there was an abandoned MA facility on a remote island or the like? Success is rarely total in science and there could be clues hinting to a dark and sinister and weird secret or 10. A story arc could absolutely be made out of this.

Another thought was a Halloween or invasion event could center around the MA buildings. Just your basic safety protocols are off and the holodeck has gone haywire scenario that Star Trek was fond of. Folks tended to gather in certain areas for invasion events anyway, so why not plan for it?

It hasn't been confirmed (to my knowledge) but I got the sense that there won't be any MA buildings like we had in the old game.
It will rather be more like STO where you access a menu to create content and then people running it will enter your mission from doors out in the world.

I would love that more! I hated hated HATED that they put in some dumb lore reason for MA in CoH. Of course, I hated their dumb power proliferation lore too :p

It hasn't been confirmed (to my knowledge) but I got the sense that there won't be any MA buildings like we had in the old game.
It will rather be more like STO where you access a menu to create content and then people running it will enter your mission from doors out in the world.

Sounds like the same thing as Neverwinter (never tried UGC in STO) where you enter UGC creation at the character select screen and then pick them up from "job boards" spread out in the game world. The missions doors themselves can be most "doors" out in the entire open game-world.

Thinking back it certainly is a better system from an immersion PoV since it's not shoehorned into a narrow reason for existing.

The more I think about it, I don't think the devs have commented one way or the other.
I think my memory is based on a discussion somewhere in the Mission Creator threads.
I'm having trouble searching for it because I'm not used to reading these forums on my phone.

One of my favorite aspects of CoH was the Mission Architect. However I believe it should be restricted to only max level characters so no worries about exp farming and powerleveling. Just have it as one of the many options for end game content. No AE babies, etc. Would be just another option out there with base editing.

One of my favorite aspects of CoH was the Mission Architect. However I believe it should be restricted to only max level characters so no worries about exp farming and powerleveling. Just have it as one of the many options for end game content. No AE babies, etc. Would be just another option out there with base editing.

My fix for AE was literally to remove/dramatically reduce the XP from it. After all, it was just a giant video game. Buff the rewards to make it worthwhile in other various ways, and it would prevent or at least hopefully deter situations to arise such as AE babies. Oh, and not have a Mission Architect building in the STARTING zone.

I don't think XP should be removed from any AE thing. It is a combat simulation. And if you gain anything in a combat simulation it should be experience. Maybe reduced to show it's not as good as the real thing. But maybe other rewards. No IGC, no enhancements or augments, no loot of any kind. If the AE idea is that it's not exactly real.

Or just have it so there's diminishing returns on it. So every AE mission you do lowers the amount of XP it grants.

Or have it be just as good as a regular mission and let people play how they want to.

I don't think XP should be removed from any AE thing. It is a combat simulation. And if you gain anything in a combat simulation it should be experience. Maybe reduced to show it's not as good as the real thing. But maybe other rewards. No IGC, no enhancements or augments, no loot of any kind. If the AE idea is that it's not exactly real.

Or just have it so there's diminishing returns on it. So every AE mission you do lowers the amount of XP it grants.

Or have it be just as good as a regular mission and let people play how they want to.

That is our thought as well, earn xp with dimishing returns for repeated plays of ugc within a given time frame.

—

I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic - Tech Team.

That makes sense, because as far as experience goes, your not going to get the same amount of experience doing the same thing over and over again. Maybe the same mission gives less every time, but if you change it up and do a different mission then you get the original amount, because it is something new, giving you a different experience. So even if someone wants to play AE till Lvl 30, then at least they are going to change it up and experience new and different stories. So it doesn't happen where all they are playing is the Fire Caves over and over again.

—

The Carnival of Light in the Phoenix Rising
"We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them." - The Ancient One

I don't think XP should be removed from any AE thing. It is a combat simulation. And if you gain anything in a combat simulation it should be experience. Maybe reduced to show it's not as good as the real thing. But maybe other rewards. No IGC, no enhancements or augments, no loot of any kind. If the AE idea is that it's not exactly real.

Or just have it so there's diminishing returns on it. So every AE mission you do lowers the amount of XP it grants.

Or have it be just as good as a regular mission and let people play how they want to.

That is our thought as well, earn xp with dimishing returns for repeated plays of ugc within a given time frame.

Does The xp will come from each mob or from the entire mission ?
'Cause maybe it could easy To put 124 567 mobs To earn a lot of lowered xp ... as an opposite earning a mission complete reward will solve this problem.

Does The xp will come from each mob or from the entire mission ?
'Cause maybe it could easy To put 124 567 mobs To earn a lot of lowered xp ... as an opposite earning a mission complete reward will solve this problem.

Pretty sure it will be structured the same way as dev-created missions, you get rewards for defeats but also for completing it. Bigger question would be if they have the same ratio between them and personally I would shift it more towards mission completion for all kinds of missions.

As for the potential for power leveling and such we must always put in contrast to what we can do in dev-created missions, and I have to say that they should be effectively equal in this regard.

I thought we'd taken the libertarian approach of "if people wanna powerlevel ugc that's thair prerogative"....

PS: fuck that spelling of prerogative!!

While we don’t frown upon players helping one another level using the side-kick system going through content, ugc can easily be misused to greatly exceed the acceptable upper bound of reward rates over time. While we want players to play ucg, we also want to maintain a healthy game invironment.

—

I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic - Tech Team.

I thought we'd taken the libertarian approach of "if people wanna powerlevel ugc that's thair prerogative"....

PS: fuck that spelling of prerogative!!

While we don’t frown upon players helping one another level using the side-kick system going through content, ugc can easily be misused to greatly exceed the acceptable upper bound of reward rates over time. While we want players to play ucg, we also want to maintain a healthy game invironment.

One way to handle that might be unique rewards you can only get through playing and crafting UGCs; incentive without requirement. Given the nature of CoT, costume pieces seem like the best way to incentivize; I'm reminded of the way Neverwinter handles it.

They have a huge number of achievements you can only get through the Foundry system - both creating and playing UGC content. I've dipped my toes into it somewhat myself, even. As a reward, I have something to the tune of six cape skins that I get for free on every character, a bear mount, and a companion "book imp" creature; if I got a Featured with any of my quests, I'd likely also manage to get a purple ioun stone, which is a little glowing rock that orbits the head of a character and empowers them.

I think something is appropriate to do similarly here. I'm not sure what you'd do for rewards - that depends on the fluff you decide to go with for how the UGC system works - but it'd be very easy to attach achievements and related rewards to said achievements, on top of the more standard experience and currency rewards.

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An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".

Well the original AE system did something weird when it made it so you could only make npcs the toughest possible for a game no matter if they where meant to be a boss, a lieutenant or a minion. We could do something different by making it so the minion, lietenants and bosses have a different number of powers

My opinion on the rewards for UGC is make it a one time full reward where all xp and items are granted at the end of the mission. Then greatly reduced xp and no items after the mission is flagged complete. Theoretically, that would prevent "abuse" of UGC and may push for more quality missions out of the system. Should also make it easier to spot abuse if there is a flood of easy high reward missions in the architect list from recurring player names.

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If small things were meant to live, they'd have bigger teeth or faster feet.

Protect the pack kid, no matter how much it hurts. If everyone else in the pack is safe, you can carry on or die knowing you've done your duty. - Fanfiction